This invention relates to a food forming apparatus and particularly to the apparatus for forming of relatively flat, shell members such as pizza shells and the like from a mass of soft dough into a light, flaky crust.
In the mass production of pizzas, pies and the like, the undercrust or shell is preferably automatically formed. An unusually satisfactory crust forming apparatus and method of employing such apparatus is disclosed in applicant's copending application entitled "Apparatus and Method for Forming Shells of Dough" which was filed on Jan. 21, 1974 with Ser. No. 434,164, now U.S. Pat. No. 3,949,660. As disclosed in such application, the crust forming apparatus includes a horizontal supporting bed which incorporates a suitable heating unit. A heated forming die unit is reciprocally mounted above the bed, with a hydraulically driven piston-cylinder unit provided for lowering and raising of the die unit. In forming of pizza shells or the like, a bulk dough ball is pushed along the surface of the bed beneath the die unit which is forced onto the ball at relatively high pressure to form the dough ball into the appropriate shell and to partially bake the shell. The die unit creates a sealed chamber for forming of the dough ball. The die unit is then retracted in two steps, with an initial slight release which maintains the forming chamber for the shell while permitting gases to escape followed by removal to an upward shell release position. A transfer unit then moves between the die unit and the formed shell, and is lowered to the shell. A vacuum is applied to the transfer unit to draw the shell upwardly into abutting engagement with the underface of the transfer unit. The underface is preferably provided with a plurality of pin-like members to further perforate the shell to permit gas release during subsequent final baking.
Although such apparatus provides a highly satisfactory method of forming shells, the requirement to raise the die forming unit sufficient to permit entry of the transfer unit as well as the interrelated time required to introduce the transfer unit, creates a relatively long forming cycle for the forming and transfer of each shell. Servicing and replacement of the forming die unit and the like may also be relatively time consuming in view of the relatively close spacing between the die forming unit and the bed which is preferably employed in order to minimize the time required to lower the unit into the forming position.
The apertured pick-up or transfer unit which moves downwardly into an engagement with the partially baked dough will have the tendency to accumulate dough material in some of the openings, requiring periodic cleaning. The underside of the transfer unit must therefore be conveniently available for cleaning. Further, the lateral, aligned arrangement of a plurality of forming units as disclosed in the above application, is desirable to increase production but is limited by the size of the oven unit which can be employed in an in-line food processing system.